Page 75 of Not Our First Rodeo
“No, it’s not,” I agree, propping my forearms on my bent knees as I watch her. Her hair is falling down her back in messy waves from the clip she was wearing. Her feet are bare and her T-shirt doesn’t fully cover her protruding bump. “But it’s the truth. You were hurt and you hurt me.”
She stops pacing, her eyes connecting with mine, hard and so unforgiving toward herself. There’s a crack in her voice when she says, “I was broken and I broke us.”
I stand and move closer to her, but she backs away until she has nowhere else to go, her body just a hairbreadth from the wetwalls. I have no such qualms. I place my hand beside her head, blue paint staining my palm, and lean in until we’re nose to nose.
“You were healing and you put us back together.”
“It doesn’t erase what I did,” she whispers, voice cracking again.
“Maybe not,” I say. “But we’re past it now. I’ve forgiven you. Now you have to forgive yourself.”
Her eyes meet mine, blue as the skies outside the window. “I don’t know if I can.”
I drop my hand from the wall to land on her lower back, pulling her closer to me, erasing the last little bit of distance between us. “You want to know what I thought when I saw those paintings today?” I wait for her nod, then continue. “I was thinking about how, when I hung them up in here, I was praying we could get back to those people, to the ones who made those paintings.”
“Me too,” she says, and it sounds raw, like it was scraped out of her.
I shake my head, her nose brushing against mine with the movement. “But then I realized I don’t want to be them again. Ilovewho we are now, who we’ve become through all of this. It hurt, but we’re better for it, Els. You have to see that. We may have broken, but when we put ourselves back together, we made something more beautiful than what we were before.”
She blinks up at me, looking wrecked, but I see a sliver of hope behind her eyes, how desperate she is to believe what I’m saying. “Do you really believe that?”
My lips find hers, pressing against them in the barest touch, letting her feel my words as I say them. “I do, Els. I really do.”
She nods, mouth brushing mine. “Okay.”
I pull back enough to see her eyes, enough for her to be able to read the sincerity in mine. “You’ll be able to forgive yourself. It might take time, but we have endless amounts of it.”
“Beau,I’mgoingtobe fine, I promise. It’s not that big of a deal,” I say, turning the truck down the street toward my doctor’s office.
He lets out a frustrated sigh, and I can imagine him pushing a hand through his hair. “Yes, it is. I haven’t missed any appointments.”
Beau and Cooper left early this morning to pick up a rescue horse from a town two hours away. He would have had plenty of time to be back for the appointment if the trailer hadn’t gotten a flat tire on the way there or if they hadn’t run into trouble loading the horse up when they arrived. Apparently, he was even more skittish than they had anticipated, and they had to take things much more slowly, meaning Beau is just now on his way back to Larkspur.
“I promise it’s fine. They’re just going to check my vitals and do a group B strep test. I’ll be in and out in no time,” I tell him. “Please don’t beat yourself up over this.”
The line is quiet for a long minute, and I know he’s trying to think of a way to argue with me, but I’ve used his own lineagainst him. For the past few weeks, since I had the meltdown in the nursery, any time I start thinking about the last year, about everything we’ve been through, he tells me I can’t keep beating myself up over the past, that we have to move forward to our new future or something along those lines.
“Fine,” he huffs. “But can you please at least write everything down so I know what I missed?”
My lips roll together to hold back my smile. “Yes, of course.”
“And I wrote down some questions I wanted to ask her. I’ll send you a photo.”
“Everything will be fine,” I promise one last time as I pull into the doctor’s office.
“You’re right. Everything’s fine,” he repeats, and I can tell it’s more to himself. “I’ll be home as soon as I can, okay?”
“See you soon. Love you,” I tell him, and end the call before pulling into a parking spot. I pull down the sun visor to check my reflection in the mirror before heading in. My face has started to swell in the last two weeks, along with my hands and feet, even more so than they were before. The straps of my sandals—the only shoes I could fit into this morning—are digging painfully into my feet. The summer sunshine beats down through the window, baking me in the cab of the truck and making sweat glisten on my brow. Not exactly the pregnancy glow I was promised. I look as uncomfortable as I feel, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make it through another four weeks of this.
But on the plus side, I’m too uncomfortable to be nervous. For the first time in this pregnancy, I don’t feel the rush of nerves that I usually do when I sit in this parking lot, preparing myself to go inside.
Cool air hits me as I walk into the doctor’s office, and I bask in it. My truck is too old for the AC to get as cold as I’d like it, and I’ve spent the hottest weeks of summer dreading riding around in it. To my surprise, the woman at the desk smiles at me as Iapproach. I wonder if she’s been doing this all along, if I was just projecting the looks of indifference. I allow myself to fully look at her instead of avoiding her eyes like usual, and shock ripples through me as I realize she was at my baby shower. She must be a friend of the Jenningses.
“Good afternoon, Elsie. How are you feeling?”
I blink, taken aback, and then feel myself relax and smile back at her. “Good,” I say, and then laugh a little. “Actually, I’m exhausted and hot.”
A chuckle rumbles out of her. “I’m sure. I had my youngest in August, and I was miserable all summer.” She gives me another warm smile. “I’ll let the doctor know you’re here.”
